Tony Bates, who has been advocating online experiential learning (and defending the feasibility thereof), in July 2020, while emergency remote learning is prominently utilised, recommends assessment of the limitations, and the implications of failure. Bates admits that during the Covid-19 pandemic it became evident that online learning (on its own) is at times not appropriate. He highlights a number of limitations, such as inequity with regard to access and affordability. Bates states that “Even if students have Internet or wifi access, they need at least 10 Mbps for any form of video, but at 2 Mbps they can handle most text (without heavy graphics) and audio”. He recommends learning design for “the lowest bandwidth of Internet to which most students will have access” and caution that at 2Mbps or less the streaming of videos, graphic rich Powerpoint slides, and making use of Zoom are not feasible. FastmetricsTM provides the measured average internet speed per country. Note the legend from bright red, representing 0.5Mbps, through to lime, representing 26.7Mbps. If the majority of students are within the 2Mbps-10 Mbps range then a learning management system (LMS) could be used if restricted to text, audio (e.g. podcasts) and simple graphics. Bates caution further to consider the costs of data for students to be online and says “if it comes to a choice between studying and eating, you are not going to win”. He recommends blended learning initiatives such as the reading of down loadable (or mailed) text, using short videos (maximum of 5-10 minutes), and the breaking of “the learning into small chunks”.
Bates encourages that media usage is carefully considered with regard to “who are your students and what access to technology do they already have?” and reminds that there had been very successful distance education prior to Internet. Radio, the forgotten media, could be used to support text, as could television broadcasts. Mobile learning through apps on mobile phones could be considered, and social media enables students and lecturers to stay connected. Bates wisely states “it is better to reach 90% of students with a slightly less than perfect medium than to reach 50% with a more powerful medium”, and that it is “more likely to meet most students with a combination of media”.
Much as Bates recognises the gut-feel of experienced lecturers, he cautions about resistance based on “fear of having to do something different” and urge that identification of exceptions to what can taught online should be “based on pedagogical effectiveness”. Bates says that “at least some of the activities previously only done in person” “such as lab and studio work, video, simulations, virtual reality, and even remotely operated labs can” indeed be done online or through digital learning enabling the reduction of “time in labs or studios, if not altogether eliminate the need for in-person presence”. He adds that “There is also a growing number of freely accessible open educational resources that can replicate lab and studio work, such as the OER Commons [https://www.oercommons.org/] and the MIT Teaching + Learning Lab [https://tll.mit.edu/]”. Bates admits that “there are still huge gaps in appropriate OER in visual arts, media, science, engineering, technical and vocational subjects, and where OER are available they are often difficult to use (for instance requiring specialised software to run) or of poor teaching quality. To date, most OER are available only in the English language, and much is at the post-secondary level.”
5 July 2009 https://www.tonybates.ca/2009/07/05/can-you-teach-real-engineering-at-a-distance/
1 December 2014 https://www.tonybates.ca/2014/12/01/can-you-do-experiential-learning-online-assessing-design-models-for-experiential-learning/
20 April 2020 https://www.tonybates.ca/2020/04/20/emergency-online-learning-and-inequity-developed-countries/
21 April 2020 https://www.tonybates.ca/2020/04/21/2-emergency-online-learning-and-inequity-developing-countries/
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